


Ar-cat-val Assistance

by coldmilkchoices



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Not In Chronological Order, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, archives cat au, i am once again asking for the archives crew to be friends, i may not be able to name cats as well as jonny sims but i can be FUNNY, the archives crew accidentally adopt a cat, there is a cat LOOSE in the archives, tim and sasha are a power duo, you are not immune to propoganda(by which i mean cute cats)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:14:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24546727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coldmilkchoices/pseuds/coldmilkchoices
Summary: Martin is sneaking a cat into the archives.He hadn’t planned for his day to start like this, but it had looked so sad when he’d found it around the side of the building, and it hadn’t protested when he’d come over (in fact it had been rather friendly) and the next thing he knew he was smuggling a cat into his place of work with vague intentions of pretending he was doing followup on a statement after his lunch break to take it out to a vet to see if it was microchipped.~~The next morning, when Martin walks into the archives, the cat is sprawled over the top of Sasha’s chair.“How are you here.” He demands. “I took you to the shelter twice.”ORA cat takes up residence in the archives through sheer persistence and liberal weaponization of adorableness. Inadvisable name choices are made.
Relationships: Basira Hussain & Alice "Daisy" Tonner, Martin Blackwood & Sasha James & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist & Tim Stoker, Martin Blackwood & Sasha James & Tim Stoker, Sasha James & Tim Stoker
Comments: 18
Kudos: 128





	1. I'm Moving In And Nothing You Do Will Stop Me

**Author's Note:**

> Halfway through writing this fic I realized that Jon basically just does this when faced with a cat. (Specifically 0:52 onwards)
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJ6aCfYW78Q
> 
> This chapter takes place somewhere ambiguously in season 1!

Martin is sneaking a cat into the archives.

He hadn’t  _ planned _ for his day to start like this, but it had looked so sad when he’d found it around the side of the building, and it hadn’t protested when he’d come over (in fact it had been rather friendly) and the next thing he knew he was smuggling a cat into his place of work with vague intentions of pretending he was doing followup on a statement after his lunch break to take it out to a vet to see if it was microchipped.

So far it had been a quiet cat, so he had hope that he’d be able to sneak it past his boss, and Sasha and Tim would probably be willing to work with him.

When Martin tucks the poor thing under his jacket, it’s shivering violently, and he tries to think warm thoughts.

Luckily, the side door closest to the archives has already been propped open, and when Martin gets to the archives, Jon is already shut up in his office and the main room is empty.

Martin sheds his coat and folds it up, then places it under his desk and lays the cat atop it. The cat immediately burrows into it until only its eyes are visible. Martin thinks it’s the cutest thing he’s ever seen.

Sasha comes in a moment later from the break room. 

“Good morning, Martin!” she says with a smile. 

Martin straightens up, trying not to appear guilty.

“Good morning, Sasha,” Martin says. “How was the commute?”

“Oh, you know,” she says, dropping into her chair. “Watched a uni kid almost get his backpack eaten by the train hurtling out at the last second.”

Tim sweeps into the room next, striking a dramatic pose in the doorway.

“Never fear, good and loyal coworkers, I am here!” he declares, somehow managing to imply a sweeping cloak with his leather jacket.

“Ah, whatever would we do without the great and mighty Tim?” Sasha asks, booting up her computer.

“Perish the thought!” Martin half-gasps as he drifts over to one of the unclaimed desks covered in papers. He’d  _ thought _ he had left the statement he was researching on his desk yesterday, but he had a bad habit of forgetting he had things in his hands and putting them down on any surface that was nearby.

“Who else would save you from the tedium of the archives?” Tim says grandly, making a flourishing gesture that nearly knocks his cup of pens to the floor and sends a few sheets of paper fluttering into the air. He curses softly and goes to retrieve them.

“Oh, Martin, your coat’s fallen to the floor. Here, I’ve got it.”

Martin whips around in abrupt panic. “Tim, wait-”

There’s a hiss and Tim makes a startled noise.

“Tim?” Sasha slides her chair over slightly and cranes her neck.

“ _ Martin _ ,” he announces delightedly and much too loudly, “Did you bring a  _ ca- _ ”

Martin shushes him. “Not so  _ loud _ !”

“What is it?” Sasha asks, still at entirely too high a volume, as Martin rushes back over to his desk to shoo Tim away from the poor cat.   
“Hell- _ lo _ ,” sings Tim, and Martin reaches down to grab him by the shoulder.

“ _ What _ are you doing.” Martin shoots straight up, and Tim freezes where he’s crouched half-under Martin’s desk.

“J-Jon! Good morning, how are y-”

“Tim, I can  _ see you _ .”

“Oh, I just knocked a pen under-”

“Martin thought he saw a mou-” Tim and Sasha both try to make excuses at the same time, but are interrupted by a hiss from under the desk.

“Is that a cat?” Jon rounds the desk.

“No, just had something caught in my throat,” Tim says, beaming innocently upwards and turning in an attempt to hide the space underneath Martin’s desk from view.

There is another hiss from underneath the desk.

“ _ Really _ , Martin? Again?” Jon says. 

“It looked cold! I couldn’t just  _ leave it- _ ”

“Tim, move, you are scaring it.”

Tim finally scuttles out of the way, and Jon squats down to peer under the desk.

Martin shuffles his feet.

“Martin, what exactly was your plan here?” Jon queries, exasperated.

“It was just for the morning! I was going to take it to the vet and see if it was microchipped on my lunch break! And it’s been really quiet and good except when Tim was bothering it-”

The cat pokes her head up out of Martin’s coat and Jon and Sasha gasp softly at the same time.

“Hello, lovely,” Jon says, carefully offering a hand out. the cat delicately sniffs his fingers and allows Jon to gently scratch it’s ears for a few seconds.

“...Alright.” says Jon abruptly, standing up.

“What?” Martin says, a little bewildered by his sudden attitude shift.

“Just for the morning. Make sure it doesn’t pee on anything. And-” he meets all three of their gazes. “Elias  _ cannot _ know.”

Martin finds himself frantically nodding, a smile stretching across his face.

“Just leave it to us, boss,” Tim says, and then Jon is gone again, shut back up into his office.

Sasha snorts a little, breaking the silence. Martin sags into his chair in relief, clutching at his chest. “I nearly had a  _ heart attack _ when he came out-”

The three of them dissolve into giggles.

Sasha leans over to observe the cat, who is watching them all from it’s coat-bed. “Oh, look how cute!” she coos.

Tim hauls himself back to standing, nearly tipping a pile of files perched haphazardly on a chair to the floor.

“Come on team,” he declares in an  _ awful _ impression of Jon. “Just because we have an archives cat doesn’t mean we get to slack off on work.”

“It’s not an  _ archives cat _ , Tim, it’s just ‘til the afternoon when I can take it to a shelter.” Martin protests.

“It is a cat, it is in the archives, therefore it is an archives cat.” Tim says.

“He’s got a point, you know,” Sasha teases, and Martin sighs, turning to his laptop.

* * *

At Martin’s lunch break, he gets ready to go.

He’s found a shelter and he’s loaded up the directions on his phone.

The cat’s been quietly napping in his coat the whole morning, and Martin has gotten a good ways into his work for the day, even between periodic pauses where the archival assistants have fawned over the cat.

Midway through the morning they’d done some frantic googling and given the cat some deli meat from the sandwich Tim had brought in for his lunch, which it had hungrily devoured.

Martin leans down and offers a hand out to the cat, who unburies itself to stare at him. “Alright, up you go,” says Martin softly, gently scooping the cat up and then retrieving his coat from the floor. Martin takes a moment to be amazed at how docile the cat has been before heading to the door.

“I’m off!” He calls to the archives at large, and Tim pops up from his computer.

“Is it lunchtime already?” Asks Sasha as she rounds the corner from document storage with yet another box crammed with files.

“Goodbye, my wonderful archives cat,” Tim coos, gently cupping the cat’s face in his hands. “I will always remember you.”

“Stop it,” says Sasha, gently nudging him out of the way for her turn at one last pet. “Nobody’s going to  _ war _ . In fact you’ll likely get a nice lovely family, nice as you are.” She scritches her nails gently over one ear and then steps back. “Alright, see you later, Martin.”

Tim looks Martin dead in the eyes. “Marto, this is a mission of utmost importance, but I have complete faith in you. Godspeed, comrade,” he solemnly declares. Martin laughs.

“Thanks, Tim.” After a last check to make sure he has everything he needs, Martin sets off.   
Just as he’s about to turn the corner into the stairwell, a door slams open behind him.

“Martin!” Jon calls, hurrying over. “I just wanted to let you know you can take as long as you need. If Elias asks I’ll just say you’re out doing some followup or something.”

“O-oh! Alright! thanks, Jon,” Martin says, and beams down at him.

Jon glances away, eyes landing on the cat cradled in Martin’s arms. His face softens as he gives his own farewell pet.

“Goodbye, lovely,” he says affectionately, and then rather abruptly jerks himself back.

“Right then! You’d best be on your way. I’ll… leave you to it.” With that, he spins and purposefully strides back down the hallway. Martin smiles after him, and then heads off to the tube station.

He only gets a few odd glances, and when he finds the shelter, there are only two other people in the waiting room.

“Hello,” says the receptionist when he walks in, bell tingling above him. “Do you have an appointment?”

“No, actually, I, ah, found a stray cat this morning and figured I should see if it’s microchipped,” Martin says.

“Alright, then, just sign in here please,” she beams, pushing a clipboard and pen over to him. Martin gently shuffles the cat over until it’s cradled in one of his arms and fills in the information. The receptionist looks over the sheet once he’s done and nods. “I’ll take this little one back right now. Are you able to stay?”

Martin nods, handing the cat over the counter.

“Great! I’m Suzy, by the way.”

“Martin,” he replies.

“Come on, you,” Suzy says affectionately, and disappears into the back of the clinic. The cat peeks around her side and gives a plaintive meow as it’s carted off. Martin feels guilty as he settles into one of the chairs around the edges of the room.

Barely ten minutes later, Suzy comes back sans cat.

“She’s in fine condition, a little malnourished but we don’t think she’s been on the street for very long. Unfortunately she’s not microchipped. Do you have an interest in taking care of her, at least temporarily?”

“I would, but my building doesn’t allow pets,” Martin says mournfully.

“Ah, that’s a shame. We have some room here, so hopefully her owner will turn up.”

“Yeah. I-I guess I’ll be going, then.”

“Thank you for bringing her in!” Suzy says.

Martin feels unusually cold on his trip back to the Institute, even with his coat zipped all the way up.

The archives seem somehow empty and quiet the rest of the day, even though everything is the same as it’s always been.

* * *

Two days later, the cat is waiting for him when he comes into work. Martin stares down in disbelief, employee keycard held at the ready to open the side door which hasn’t been propped open this morning.

“What are you doing here?” Martin asks. The cat meows quietly at him and stares expectantly.

Martin sighs, scoops the cat up, and opens the door.

When he reaches the archives, Tim and Sasha are both in already.

“You will never believe who I found this morning on my way in,” Martin announces from the doorway.

“Archives cat!” Tim exclaims, lighting up instantly.

Jon chooses that moment to come in from the break room.

“Oh, hello, Ma- did you bring in another cat?”

“No! She was just waiting at the door when I came in somehow! I don’t even know how she got here, it’s a ten minute trip on the tube!”

Martin braces himself as Jon squints suspiciously at the cat. She stares innocently back. Jon somehow manages to squint even harder. The cat slowly blinks and then wriggles out of Martin’s arms to pad imperiously past Jon, leap onto Tim’s chair, and curl up. A startled laugh bubbles out of Martin, and Jon rolls his eyes.

“Alright, what’s one more day. There’s hardly anything you can do about it now.” He sighs.

Tim and Sasha cheer and immediately rush to lavish attention upon the cat.

“I’ll bring her over to the shelter on my lunch break,” Martin promises.

* * *

Suzy is behind the counter again at the shelter when he walks in. She greets him with a smile, and an “Oh! Hello again!” Then her eyes drop to the cat.

“She showed up outside my work again this morning,” Martin offers as explanation.

“That’s odd,” she says. “Well, thanks for bringing her back.” She says, waving for Martin to follow her as she gets up and heads deeper into the building.

“I don’t know how she could have gotten out. Just put her right in here,” Suzy says, opening a door to a room filled with cats separated by dividers.

Martin deposits the cat gently into the enclosure Suzy points out and the cat stares up, all big eyes and betrayal. She mews sadly and Martin nearly melts on the spot.

“Have you had any luck finding her owner?” he says, tearing his eyes away with monumental effort.

“No, not yet, although it's only been a few days and we’ve put up ads. There's still hope yet!” Suzy says cheerily, leading Martin back out. He makes small talk and then heads back to the Institute.

Martin desperately tries to forget the sheer sadness of the cat for the rest of the day.

* * *

The next morning, when Martin walks into the archives, the cat is sprawled over the top of Sasha’s chair.

“How are you here.” He demands. “I took you to the shelter twice.”

The cat begins to innocently clean her face.

“Archives cat!” Sasha calls from behind him, swooping in and sliding a gentle hand along the cat’s spine as she passes to put her bag down next to her desk.

“Again?” asks Jon, coming out of document storage, teetering under a too-full box of statements that he can barely see over.

Martin rushes over to grab a stack of papers off the top before they slide onto the floor.

“I don’t understand how she’s doing this!” He says, trailing after Jon as he searches for a clear place to put the new box.

“We’ve got a little escape artist on our hands, hm?” Sasha grins, scritching under the cat’s chin.

“Don’t encourage her, Sasha,” Jon says dryly, finally finding a spot that seems to please him and heaving the box up. Martin places the stack of papers next to it as Jon begins to rifle through it. “At least Tim will be happy.” Jon continues.

As if on cue, Tim squeals in the doorway.

Martin brings the cat back to the shelter that afternoon, and Suzy is even more befuddled than the day before.

Today, the cat grabs his hand between her paws as he goes to leave, and it takes everything Martin has to not scoop her back up and take off, building rules or no.

* * *

After a few more weeks it becomes routine to come into work and find the cat either already inside or waiting by the side door expectantly if it hasn’t been propped open every two or three days. The longest they go without her appearing is four days.

The cat slides affectionately around their ankles, yells at them all for perceived slights, and has bullied Jon into leaving his door partly open so she can come and go as she pleases. He mutters threats under his breath at her, but there’s an undeniable current of affection to them.

Sasha comes in one day with tins of cat food, “Just so we have something to give her,” and Tim brings in several cat toys another. A litter box appears in the corner of the breakroom the next week.

Whenever the cat is in the archives, she disappears just before lunchtime, so Martin has to hunt her down in order to return her to the shelter once more. He’s gotten to know the staff there and even a few of the regulars, and the cat’s escape artist tendencies are the source of much joking. As the weeks become months, Martin tries not to become worried. He reminds himself that even if the cat’s owner doesn’t come forward, surely someone will be willing to adopt such a sweet cat. (Except she’s constantly escaping the shelter to come to the  _ Institute _ of all places.)

Martin wishes that he could adopt her, but his building doesn’t allow animals. He’s asked Tim and Sasha and their buildings have similar rules. (He hasn’t gathered the courage to ask Jon.)

Luckily for all of them, the archives aren’t the most popular place in the Institute, and even when they do get visitors, they tend to be university students who appear in the afternoon, after the cat has taken the Martin-ferry to the shelter.

They have one close call with Elias about three weeks in. The cat has just disappeared under one of the extra desks when he comes in, and the three archival assistants immediately freeze.

“Good morning,” he says congenially.

“G-good morning, Mr. Bouchard,” Martin squeaks.

Tim rolls his chair over to Martin. “Keep it together,” he hisses out of the corner of his mouth, and then turns a blinding grin on Elias. “Good morning, double boss! What brings you down to our humble archives?”

“Just a check in with our Head Archivist,” he says evenly, offering a glimpse of perfect white teeth.

Out of the corner of his eye, Martin sees the cat’s head poke out from underneath the desk.

Sasha suddenly stands up and promptly trips over the leg of her own chair just as the cat gives an inquisitive “mrrp?” As Sasha goes down, the cat ducks back underneath the desk in surprise.

“Whoops! I’m so sorry, it’s a little cluttered in here!” she says, getting to her feet.

“Are you alright?” Elias asks politely.

Oh, yes, I’m fine,” Sasha beams up at him, brushing off her legs.

“Do be careful, Miss James,” Elias says coolly, and then turns towards Jon’s office, presumably to loom menacingly over his desk.

“Good morning, Elias,” Martin hears Jon say acerbically. “Would you mind shutting the door?”

As soon as the door closes, the archival assistants leap into action, Sasha crouching down to grab the cat.

“Where do we put her?” she whispers loudly.

“The break room?” Martin offers.

“No, document storage, there’s a door,” Tim says, and Sasha dashes for it, Tim and Martin nearly falling over each other as they get up to follow her.

“Stay.” Sasha says firmly as she closes the door.

“She’s not a  _ dog _ , Sasha,” Martin says faintly.

“Cats are smart!” she defends.

“Hopefully she doesn’t shred anything, Jon’ll go nuclear,” Tim mutters, and they all wince.

Elias’ volume suddenly increases as he gets closer to Jon’s door, and the three of them scramble back to their desks.

Martin tries to act natural, tapping rapidly at his laptop to get the screen to wake up and stares intently at it as the door creaks open.

“Think about it, Jon,” Elias says near-smugly as he steps out. Martin holds his breath.

There’s a loud meow from document storage, which Tim responds to by sneezing incredibly loudly.

Elias stops in surprise. “Bless you.” he says flatly.

“Thanks,” grins Tim.

Martin still hasn’t looked up from his laptop, but he still shivers under the weight of Elias’ regard.

Sasha sneezes violently over another demanding meow.

“Bless you.” Elias repeats.

Martin tries to shrink behind his laptop.

“Take care,” Elias says a little disdainfully, and then disappears around the corner into the hallway.

Tim mutters something under his breath as Martin lets out an explosive sigh and flops over his desk.

The cat yowls from document storage.

Sasha goes to let her out, and the cat stalks into the main room with a chastising rant.

“I know, you don’t like being shut up but Elias can’t know you’re here.” Sasha says down at her.

The cat sticks her tail up high and saunters over to one of the unclaimed desks to pointedly curl up with her back to them.

Martin giggles a little hysterically.

You alright, Marto?” Tim asks, a grin tugging at his mouth.

Martin pushes his glasses up to press his palms against his eyes. “Yeah, yeah I’m good. I can’t believe that  _ worked _ .”

“Magnificent acting, Lady James,” Tim says to Sasha.

She sketches a bow. “What can I say, I’m incredible.”

The cat turns her head over her shoulder to glare insultedly at them, and Martin can’t help but laugh.

* * *

“I think we should have a name for her,” Tim decides one day.

Sasha gives the cat a considering look as she taps away at her computer. “Houdini?”

“Socks.”

“Kristen.”

“Nala.”

“Dorothy.”

“Biscuit.”

“Alexanderia.”

“Snowball.”

“Tim, you’re  _ awful _ at this, she’s not even a white cat.”

“ _ You _ just googled ‘famous female escape artists’ and started reading off a list!”

Jon chooses that moment to wander in.

“What are you two fighting about now?” he asks, rolling his eyes.

“We’re trying to decide on a name for our lovely overseer,” says Tim, turning over to sit upside-down in his chair.

Jon  _ hmm _ ’s and sidles over to give the cat in question a pet. “What about The Bandit?”

Tim scoffs.

“What! It’s a perfectly good name!

“It’s  _ weird _ .”

“It’s  _ unique _ .”

“Minerva,” Sasha offers.

“The Duchess.”

“Kit-Kat.”

“Marie.”

“Snickers.”

“The Colonel.”

“Do  _ all _ your cat names start with ‘The?’”

“You’re just naming candy bars!”

“Toulouse?” Sasha interjects.

Tim’s brow scrunches up. “Is that the Aristocats?”

“Well Jon offered up ‘the Duchess’ and it made me think of it.”

Martin’s been squinting at the frankly  _ awful _ handwriting of this statement giver for so long his head is starting to spin. They’ve been nattering along about coming into the archives and encountering some of the archival staff, as some statement givers are wont to do, and while it  _ is _ kind of funny to listen to his coworkers go around, he’d  _ just _ gotten into the swing of things when they started up. Martin looks up and makes eye contact with the cat, who blinks regally at him.

Before he knows it, a name is popping out of his mouth.

“Gertrude?”

The room goes absolutely silent, and the other three members of the archives staff turn to look at him.

“ _ Martin _ !” Tim says in scandalized delight, and the spell is broken.

“Oh my goodness, I don’t know where that came from, I was just reading this statement, and they were talking about her, I’m so sorry-”

“No- no it kind of fits?” Sasha says through a giggle. “The way she won’t take any nonsense from any of us reminds me of her.”

“And the  _ glare _ she has!” Tim chimes in. “Gertrude glared at me once and I felt guilty for the whole rest of the day. Of course, our archives cat is too cute to really scare anyone, but she does have a mean stink-eye.”

Jon finally seems to find his voice. “We are  _ not _ naming a cat after my dead predecessor.”

Tim is making a face Martin doesn’t like the implications of. He makes a noncommittal noise.

“We  _ cannot _ do that,” Jon stresses.

“Alright, Jon,” Sasha says. Jon remains wound up for another moment or so, before nodding to himself and rising to his feet.

“Right then, back to work,” he says, not unkindly, and then vanishes into his office. (The door remains cracked for the cat’s convenience.)

Martin attempts to go back to the statement, but the cramped letters are starting to make his head spin.

“I’m buying a collar,” Sasha announces.

“But… we haven’t decided on a name?” Martin tries, desperately clinging to his last hope that this nightmare will be forgotten.

“Mm. Tim, what color should I get?”

He flips right-side-up and leans over to look. “Ooh, I like that blue.”

“I kind of like this green one better, though.”

Martin finds himself locking eyes with the cat once more.

Tim reaches over to scratch under her chin. “What do you think, Gertie?”

Martin wishes he could sink into the earth or vanish forever. He jerks his gaze away, and back down to the paper. The only word he can pick out is  _ Gertrude _ .

“I’m going to make some tea,” he announces, and dashes into the next room before he can do something stupid like set the statement on fire.


	2. where is the baby?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey remember last time when i said it was gonna be worm time? i lied this is now a bunch of semi connected non chronological one shots. i should probably make this into a collection or something but i dont feel like putting myself through making that many fic titles so i will now be skipping through time with reckless abandon
> 
> this takes place sometime after daisy is rescued in s4. this is mildly ooc but thats because theyre having fun hadfadsfasdf
> 
> also fun fact this was the first thing for gertrude cat i wrote!

Melanie and Jon come tumbling into the archives just after midnight, grabbing onto each other for support as they bump the edges of the doorway.

Basira’s eyes burn when she looks up, and she feels a pang of guilt realizing she’d accidentally gone down a rabbit hole and lost track of time even though she’d promised Daisy they’d go out.

Melanie lets out a cheer when she catches sight of Basira and catches Jon by the collar when he nearly falls right over in the doorway trying to stop. He fumbles his feet back under him and immediately begins to squint around, swaying gently.

“Wha- are you  _ drunk _ ?” Basira asks, standing up, then belatedly remembers Tim dragging Jon up out of his office, loudly declaring that they were going out on the town, extending the invitation out to the entire archives, although only Melanie and Sasha had accepted. Martin had been out of the archives, as he often was nowadays, and Basira and Daisy had vague plans of their own, so they had stayed behind. That doesn’t explain why Jon and Melanie had returned to the archives, though.

Of course, this entire train of thought is derailed by Jon’s next sentence.

“Where’za baby?” Jon says, batting Melanie’s hands off his shirt so he can stumble into the room, and Basira feels panic burn right through her exhaustion in under a second.

“ _ Baby? _ ” Was this one of his weird Archivist things? Had one of the other Avatars somehow acquired a baby and left it here? Had some statement giver left a child here? Why hadn’t Jon  _ told anyone? _

Jon bobbles his head and manages to trip over Tim’s chair. “The baby. W̸h̵e̴r̴e̶ ̷i̵s̴ ̷t̵h̸e̷ ̴b̴a̴b̴y̸?̵”

Basira lunges forward to catch him by the shoulders before he can crack his head open on the floor and the words “ I don’t know” are out of her mouth before she realizes his words had an edge to them.

“Sorry,” he mumbles under her glare, shrinking into himself a bit.

Basira shakes him just a little and catches his gaze, pushing that particular argument off for later.

“Jon,  _ what baby? _ ”

Daisy pops up on the other side of the room, red creases pressed into her face from where she’d fallen asleep on the couch waiting for Basira to finish up. “Wha’s goin’ on?”

Jon sluggishly turns his head her way, but Melanie is the one that answers, way too loud, swaying away from the doorway and into the room. “Jon says there’s a baby in the archives!”

Daisy goes very still and makes extremely alarmed eye contact with Basira.

A jingle in the doorway leading to the main archives announces the arrival of the archives cat, and Jon lights up.

“Gertrude!” he calls, and immediately goes boneless, slithering out of Basira’s grip to scoop up the cat.

“Hellllllllo, baby,” Jon slurs at the cat, and the pieces click together in Basira’s head. She pinches the bridge of her nose to stave off a headache as Daisy gives a startled laugh.

Jon settles himself on the floor with the cat in his lap and immediately begins lavishing attention on her.

“You’re the cutest kitty in the whole wide world. Did you know that? Did you know that, baby?”

Melanie lurges off her desk and disappears into the breakroom to rummage through the cabinets, keeping up a steady stream of commentary to herself that’s plenty loud enough for Basira to hear but nowhere near coherent enough to be understood. She returns with a forgotten bag of pretzels and plops down next to Jon to join in giving attention to the cat.

“She’s not as fluffy as the Admiral,” Melanie comments.

Basira turns back to her desk to tidy up and get ready to leave.

“No,” agrees Jon. “The Admiral is the fluffiest cat in the world. But they’re both good cats.”

“The best,” says Melanie.

By this point, Gertrude is purring loudly, tucked up in Jon’s lap and gratefully accepting his and Melanie’s offerings of pets.

Daisy ambles across the room to steal a few pretzels from Melanie.

Jon tips his head up to look at her, and light flashes off his glasses. The glint causes Gertrude to bat at his nose, and his glasses, which had already been precariously perched, come right off and clatter to the floor. Jon giggles and shoves them crookedly back onto his face with one hand.

“Silly kitty, I need these to see,” he admonishes Gertrude.

Basira spots Daisy pointing her phone at the two on the floor, and Daisy makes a face in her direction. Basira rolls her eyes back, and Daisy tucks her phone into her pocket.

“Did you know that there are between 43 and 71 officially recognized cat breeds?” Jon announces abruptly.

Melanie glances askance at him, wary, and Basira frowns down at him. “Jon-”

He looks up at her and stops scratching the cat. “Oh, n- I knew that one, uh, before. Before the Institute. When Georgie got the Admiral, I, I uh, did some research on cats.”

Basira studies him on the floor, watches Gertrude make a mewling complaint ant the ceasing of pets and abandons his lap for Melanies, who makes a noise of triumph.

“You really like researching, don’t you.” Basira observes neutrally.

Jon chuckles nervously. “Yeah, I- I’ve always liked to know things. To learn them.”

Daisy is making another face at her as Jon glances away and tries to win the cat’s affection back. Basira makes a face back and sighs. “Let’s get you two home,” she says, and Daisy steps forward to help haul them to their feet.

“No, ‘m good,” Jon says, swaying against Daisy’s arm and shoving a hand up under his glasses to scrub at his eyes. “I’ll just sleep on the cot.”

Melanie narrows her eyes at him. “You said you forgot your bag,”

“Well it is  _ here, _ and I do need it. Anyways I told you you could just head home on your own.”

“And  _ I _ told  _ you _ that we didn’t need you getting kidnapped again or re-coma’d or something by going off on your own,” Melanie fires back.

“Jon, you can’t stay here the whole weekend,” Daisy cuts in, frowning concernedly down at him.

“I’ve done it before, it’s no big deal,” Jon says mulishly.

“You can’t stay in this place all the time, it’s not healthy,” Daisy insists.

Basira doesn’t particularly feel like arguing with Jon over where he stays, and considering the odd hours he keeps around the archives basically everyone knows he sleeps here sometimes. Basira is perfectly happy letting Jon stay wherever he likes, but she knows Daisy won’t let it go that easy.

“I drove here today, I’ll just drive the both of you home,” Basira says, hoping to put an end to the argument.

Jon opens his mouth to object, but subsides at the look Daisy gives him. “Fine,” he grumbles, letting Daisy help him to his feet.

Melanie regretfully removes Gertrude from her lap as she hauls herself to her feet, and Jon leans down to scoop her up from the floor. “She always comes home on weekends,” he explains to Daisy.

Basira collects her bag as Daisy begins shepherding their drunk friends out the door.

Jon stares at his toes as Basira makes sure the doors are locked and turns off the lights. He looks much smaller and more vulnerable than he usually does, missing the stuffiness and manic energy that usually fills him out. Basira sighs.

“What was it? 43 to 70 cat breeds?”

Jon’s head shoots up in surprise. “Uh- yeah,” he says cautiously.

“Why’s there such a big gap?” Basira asks, and Jon perks up as he launches into a drunken ramble about cat associations and then into random cat facts as they pile into Basira’s car, somehow managing to avoid Melanie’s attempts to steal Gertrude from him all the way.

They drop Melanie off first, Daisy staying in the car with Jon while Basira herds a steadily-devolving Melanie up the stairs in her building to see her safely into her bed, pulling her shoes off.

“Melanie, where do you keep your paracetamol?” Basira asks, and gets a vague mumble about the bathroom mirror.

Basira rustles through Melanie’s bathroom cabinets until she finds what she’s looking for, and leaves the bottle and a glass of water on Melanie’s bedside table. Melanie says something resembling a thank you as she rolls herself into her blankets, and Basira does a quick sweep of the flat, making sure there aren’t any suspicious spiders, worms, or even unusual-looking doors. Helen is mostly allied with them, but it never hurts to check.

Once she’s satisfied the apartment is entity-free, Basira double checks that the door is locked behind her before she leaves.

When she gets back to the car, Jon is mostly asleep in the backseat, face pressed up against the window, Gertrude curled up in is lap, and Daisy is attempting to surreptitiously take pictures.

By the time they get to Jon’s flat, he’s fully passed out. Daisy gently shakes him awake.

“Jon, keys.”

He murmurs something unintelligible and fishes around in his pocket, handing them to Daisy.

Daisy quickly passes Gertrude off onto Basira, and the cat squints suspiciously at her before acquiescing to being carried.

Daisy turns back to Jon and pulls him out of the car. “Up you go,” she says, hoisting him into a piggyback ride.

“D’d you know that the oldest known evidence of domesticated cats is a cat grave from 9500 BCE?” Jon sleepily mumbles into Daisy’s back. Daisy hums agreeably as she lets them into his flat.

Once inside, Basira lets Gertrude down on the floor, and then goes to the kitchen to get a glass of water. Gertrude follows her into the kitchen and watches her search Jon’s cabinets for glasses, and then wanders off into the flat, calm as can be.

Basira finds paracetamol sitting lonely on the kitchen counter, and frowns down at it.

Jon’s flat has at least three books in every room she sees, but other than that it seems strangely… empty. Unlived in.

She supposes that’s what happens when you’re in a coma for six months.

Daisy passes through one of the doors in the hall, presumably to sweep the apartment, and Basira goes in to leave the water and meds. As she leaves, Jon sits up in the bed.

“Basira?” he asks. She half turns back to him.

“I- thank you,” he says.

Basira can’t deny that Jon freaks her out a little, what with the whole connection to the Eye thing he has, but Daisy likes him well enough so that counts for at least something. “See you on Monday, Jon,” she says, and closes the door while Jon whumps back into his bed. She meets Daisy at the door.

“All clear,” Daisy says, and gives a goodbye scritch to Gertrude’s head. The cat meows at them from her spot perched on the back of Jon’s couch and tucks her nose under her tail. They step out and Basira checks that the door is locked behind them.

“Let’s go home,” says Basira, and they head out to the car for the last time that night.

* * *

On Monday morning, Martin drops into the archives for the first time in a while.

“Where’s the baby?” he asks, a smile tugging around his lips.

Jon freezes from where he’d been digging through a stack of statements on one of the extra desks.

“Who-” he begins, and Daisy snorts a pleased laugh.

“ _ Daisy _ -”

Sasha and Tim share a smirk from opposite sides of the room.

“The video was rather cute,” Martin says, and Jon goes abruptly pink, mouth hanging open, just as the cat in question jingles into the room.

“Hello, lovely,” Martin says, bending down to greet her. Jon’s brain finally catches up.

“Video?” he squawks, rounding on Daisy, who laughs even harder. Melanie dissolves into cackles.

Basira smiles down at her book.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *shoves the archives crew into the same room* ok now be friends with each other
> 
> did you know theres cat breed drama? bc i didnt until i wrote this fic
> 
> i love tim and sasha i simply could not allow them to die... fuck canon we happy bc we have a cat in the archives
> 
> also!!!! im on tumblr now!!! come say hi, my name is also coldmilkchoices there :)
> 
> https://coldmilkchoices.tumblr.com/

**Author's Note:**

> :)
> 
> I hope you enjoyed!
> 
> Next chapter its time for a caterpillar rave!!!!!! *ominous worm noises*
> 
> ((((please feel free to tell me if there are any typos ive read this four times and no longer know what the words mean))))


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